Canal+ Chief Says Group Will Stop Working With Petition Signers

The head of France's largest film producer said the company will no longer work with more than 600 actors, directors and other cinema professionals who signed a petition criticizing the political influence of its owner. The open letter, published earlier this week to coincide with the opening of the Cannes film festival, was signed by more than 600 figures, including the actor-director Juliette Binoche, the director and photographer Raymond Depardon, the French-Iranian film-maker Sepideh Farsi and the director Arthur Harari.

The petition warned that leaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right owner risked not only the standardisation of films but a fascist takeover of the collective imagination. Signers also expressed alarm that Canal+ had taken a stake in UGC, the third-biggest network of French cinemas, with a view to fully owning it in 2028.

The Canal+ chief executive called the petition an injustice toward the Canal+ teams, who are committed to defending the independence of Canal+ and the full diversity of its choices. He added that he will no longer work with and no longer want Canal to work with the people who signed that petition.

The owner also controls the channel CNews, the radio station Europe 1 and the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche. StudioCanal, the company's in-house production arm, has produced recent films including the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black and Paddington in Peru.

The tumult mirrors similar upheaval in the publishing industry. In an unprecedented move last month, more than 100 writers quit the publishing house Grasset in protest at the owner's control of its parent company, Hachette. In a sign of the owner's divisive reputation, the Canal+ logo was booed in Cannes at some screenings this year, including for the opening film, The Electric Kiss.

In a senate hearing in 2022, the owner denied political or ideological interventionism, saying his interest in acquiring media was purely financial and his cultural empire was about promoting French soft power.